‘Everyone has known he’s been doing this’: FBI interview with Trump reveals he had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes
A newly revealed FBI interview has raised new questions about US President Donald Trump’s claims that he knew nothing about the crimes of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Meanwhile, Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, faced a barrage of questions from lawmakers on Tuesday about his own ties to the disgraced, late financier.
The day’s developments underscored how the fallout from the Epstein scandal remains a major political headache for the Trump administration, weeks after the Justice Department released millions of Epstein-related files to comply with a bipartisan bill.
The files also caused crises abroad after new details emerged about Epstein’s ties with leading figures in politics, finance, business and academia.
In July 2006, when Epstein’s first sex crime charges were made public, the police chief in Palm Beach, Florida, received a call from Trump, according to a summary of a 2019 FBI interview with the police chief included in the files.
Police Chief Michael Reiter said Trump told him, “Thank goodness you are stopping him, everyone knows you did this.”
Trump told Reiter that people in New York knew about Epstein and advised him that Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell was “bad,” according to the document.
Trump also said he was once around Epstein when the teenagers were there and “got the hell out of there.”
Reiter, who retired in 2009, confirmed details of the Miami Herald interview that first reported the FBI’s presence.
When asked about the reported conversation, the Justice Department said, “We are not aware of any corroborating evidence that the President had contact with law enforcement 20 years ago.”
Trump said he had been friends with Epstein for years, but they had a falling out before Epstein’s first arrest.
The president has repeatedly said he was unaware of Epstein’s crimes.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday that Trump was “honest and transparent” about ending his relationship with Epstein.
“This was a phone call that may or may not have happened in 2006,” he said.
“I don’t know the answer to that question.”
Separately Tuesday, Lutnick attempted to distance himself from Epstein, claiming he had “almost nothing to do” with him while testifying at a Senate hearing.
Justice Department files included emails showing Lutnick visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island for lunch in 2012, seven years after he claimed to have cut all ties.
These revelations led to calls from both Republicans and Democrats for him to resign.
Lutnick told senators that the two men met only three times in 14 years and that the lunch, which included his family, took place only because he was on a boat near the island.
“I know, and my wife knows, that I have done absolutely nothing wrong in any possible way,” Lutnick said at the hearing. he said.
But the emails contradicted Lutnick’s previous statements in 2005, when he swore he would never see Epstein again after his then-neighbor showed Lutnick a massage table in his townhouse and made a sexually explicit comment.
Republican Rep. Tom Massie told CNN on Sunday that Lutnick should “frankly make the president’s life easier and resign.”
Trump “fully supports” Lutnick, Leavitt told reporters at the White House on Tuesday.
Congressional Democrats also introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at making it easier for adult sex trafficking victims to sue their abusers even years later.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez introduced the bill alongside the family of Epstein victims and Virginia Giuffre.
The proposal — the Virginia Bill — is named after Giuffre, one of Epstein’s chief accusers, who died by suicide last year.
Epstein was found dead in a New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial.
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